[Bigtoe]

They are going to be very busy defending themselves when they get hit with a restraint of trade lawsuit. The DOJ has a bone to pick with the NAR lately and they just love it when the NAR gives then something like this to work with.

[Malok]

Yay. Instead of spending money on something productive for its members - they've come up with a way to either penalize its members, or piss money away on lawyer fees.

Great choices.

GO TEAM!

[Saodavi]

Originally Posted by Malok

Yay. Instead of spending money on something productive for its members - they've come up with a way to either penalize its members, or piss money away on lawyer fees.

Great choices.

GO TEAM!

I agree. The NAR is turning into the new RIAA. "If you find your business model unable to keep pace with changing times, sue your customers." Brilliant!

[svrpaul]

That's the problem. They won't be able to enforce this with non members.

Long ago I owned 2vegasrealtors.com (late 90's) before the amendment clarifying the use of Realtor in a domain name. (2000 I think)

When it was in the top 3 for all the search engines for Las Vegas Realtor it was obviously turned in by a competitor along with another person that had Realtor (vegasrealtor.com) in their domain name and we were both forced to completely give up ownership. We could not even forward it to a new domain otherwise we were going to get some big fines and dropped from our local association.

Now, if you check the domain name we used to own, 2vegasrealtors.com it is owned by somebody up in Canada that is using it as a referral site. I brought this up to the Las Vegas Association long ago and nothing was done and still has not been done several years later.

Obviously I've moved on and don't really care --- the point of the matter is that the amendment will be used against the very members that pay into the system and not against people that do not pay into the system.

I'm all for protecting the rights of a trademark. As webmaster has stated, MLS is trademarked by Major League Soccer. What that means is that NAR will only be able to enforce the use of MLS against members --- which certainly helps out Non-members that are merely third party websites selling leads to "Members".

If nothing was or is currently being done with something that NAR can go after such as my old domain (because it does have a protected trademark), they certainly will not be able to do anything about the use of MLS in non member sites.

I would have no problem with rules like this being implemented (and honestly I really have no problem with it now) I just don't think that the actual members that pay into the system should be squeezed which is exactly what is going to happen. And I know--- because it happened to me.

[Jason Painter]

I am rethinking my status of being affiliated with an organization such as this. This new news is utterly ridiculous.

[Northern_IL]

And yet we will continue to pay over $3.00 a gallon and nothing is done.

[svrpaul]

Originally Posted by Northern_IL

And yet we will continue to pay over $3.00 a gallon and nothing is done.

LOL! Where did that come from? (While that is true, it's funny that you posted it here.) It brings up my thought that membership has doubled since I became a member..... and that Prime building on Michigan Ave sure is nice.

I wonder why you can never find pictures of it? It sure is some nice real estate.

[Northern_IL]

LOL.....I put that here because there are things in this world, as well as this business, that we have no control over. It irritates me just as much as the next person and there's not a darn thing we can do about it.

I know it's from left field but hey....it's get the point across.

[satxproperty]

If I remember correctly, a couple of years ago Morgan had one of his clients get shunned by the use of the term MLS by the member's board.

Morgan put up his dukes on the issue and actually, I think that the board in question gave him an order or face the consequences type of music. (What can you do to me, kind of was his position?)

I wish I could find that...

[MarcinSarasota]

The Sarasota Board of Realtors has been trying for a long time to get me to shut my site down - www.thesarasotamls.com. If I shut down this site I pretty much shut down my business.

They claim that I am violating Article 12. Most of my peers have shut down their sites. The worst they can do is kick me out of the board and cut off my data feed. However, I can always join the board in a neighboring county.

I would just sell the site to a non member before I ever shut it down. I guess they would have to pursue in civil court.